Many Australians regard the beach as a place that belongs to everyone, where no-one can be excluded. But the truth of that notion will now be tested by the High Court.

Conservation groups want harsher penalties for illegal land clearing, as the WA Government investigates a Chinese-owned company over the mysterious clearing of 120 hectares at a cattle station.

A meteor possibly as small as a tennis ball bursts into the Earth's atmosphere causing a flash of light and a sound "like thunder" over Tasmania and Victoria, causing some to fear the worst.

A botched effort at censoring a scathing report on Tasmania's juvenile detention centre reveals a litany of shortcomings, including "very little real security", CCTV that is "rarely monitored", inadequate reporting of force being used and a fence that would not stop an escape attempt, only "slow it down".

A former Tasmanian cricketer and Liberal member of Parliament struggled to inflate his life jacket while panicking in the water before he drowned, an investigation into the fishing trip tragedy finds.

Using cameras and wind disturbance, a Tasmanian wind farm will be the first in Australia to deter wedge-tailed eagles from flying into the turbine blades.

Researchers have used marsupial lion fossils discovered in Naracoorte and the Nullarbor to discover that the Thylacoleo was similar to a tree-climbing Tasmanian devil, ambushing its prey in forests.

The man accused of murdering a 29-year-old man on the Nullarbor Plain is remanded in custody after appearing briefly in court in Ceduna, in South Australia's far west.

Friends of a man allegedly murdered on South Australia's Nullarbor Plain on Monday say he had previously worked as an interpreter with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the US Army in Afghanistan, and had "escaped the warzone" in moving to Australia.

Ground-penetrating radar technology has discovered multiple unmarked graves at an old Aboriginal mission cemetery in south-west Victoria.

A council in South Australia's Riverland is working to recognise the final resting places of people whose graves were unmarked because of the stigma of suicide at the time.

The worldwide price of oil has fallen by more than $US10 a barrel in recent weeks, but the cheaper price has not fazed a Norwegian company's plan to drill in the Great Australian Bight.

Magarey Medallist Luke Partington from Glenelg thanks volunteers for their tireless contribution to football, while SA football greats Peter Motley and Greg Anderson are inducted into the Hall of Fame.

South Australia Police are investigating a video that appears to show an off-duty officer badly injuring or killing a wombat by throwing rocks at it, but an Aboriginal elder says it is a local hunting practice.

Clean drinking water is essential for survival but one South Australian Aboriginal community has now been completely "bone dry" for days.

A GPS clock rollover, which experts predicted would have little impact because of years of advance notice, causes the grounding of the Bureau of Meteorology's weather balloons.

Hopeful prospectors flock to Victoria's goldfields in search of a lucky strike, but the region is also a hotbed of scientific discovery thanks to the number of meteorites found there.

A court is told a Melbourne man only pretended to plan for terrorist attacks to expose a "mole" he thought was embroiled in a police conspiracy against right-wing groups.

Peter Young portrait

View from Peter Young's house

Bioscientists are developing 3D printed artificial tissues that may help heal bone and cartilage typically damaged in sports-related injuries.

UAE building giant Arabtec Construction has teamed up with Robert Bird Group, American University of Dubai (AUD) and local firm 3Dvincy Creations, to establish the AUD Center for 3D concrete printing & digital construction.

Ukrainian-born Iryna Dvoskina and husband Yuriy Vdovychenko are the coaching duo behind a handful of Australia's most incredible para-athletes.

An Australian rifleman who fought in the Boer War was one of eight soldiers awarded a hand-crocheted scarf by Queen Victoria.

Albert Burke served his country and fought on the Western Front, but when he returned home, he was forced onto a mission and later died in the bush, alone.

Date palms in the central desert are a legacy of Afghan cameleers bringing a little bit of home with them. Today, Australian farmers are keen to grow the local date industry to feed the Middle East and the health food sector, while staving off cheap imports.

At one point Peter Sherwin was the largest private landowner in the country, with about 300,000 head of cattle, spanning 17 cattle stations.

Volunteer detection dogs have been trained to find the endangered alpine stonefly at Falls Creek, an insect measuring just 50 millimetres in length.

The Returned and Services League in NSW says it has been falling behind in providing services and enticing new members and is now renewing its refocus on caring for veterans and their families.

Sniffer dogs are being urgently flown to northern Australia to try and stop a disease that has wiped out around 20 per cent of the world's pig population from coming onto Australian shores.

The 91-year-old cattle station pioneer who laid the chain up the rock says he is not expecting visitor numbers to dive now the climb has officially been closed.

Forty years after the Vietnam War, two Canberra veterans have developed digital maps to help locate some 300,000 Vietnamese war dead still missing in action.